


Feathers and Flight Logs

by SleepySsnail



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Acceptance, Alternate Universe - Wings, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Friendship, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gen, Humor, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron)-centric, Langst, M/M, One Big Happy Family, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Acceptance, Soft Keith/Lance (Voltron), Wing Grooming, set in season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28672728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepySsnail/pseuds/SleepySsnail
Summary: Being born with wings was a rare gift that many envy and others hate, prompting the winged to hide their traits in order to blend in with society. Getting sent to space with a bunch of people and having his secret revealed wasn't part of Lance's plan, but he can work with it.
Relationships: Allura & Coran & Lance (Voltron), Allura & Lance (Voltron), Coran & Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance & Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 265





	Feathers and Flight Logs

**Author's Note:**

> Ah this was my gift for hauntedwintersweets for the voltron secret santa exchange! I had a lot of fun writing this and hope you like!

It was a rare gift to be born with wings. Only a small percentage of the world’s population had them, which made the people who bore them subject to discrimination and scientists who dreamed of performing tests on them.

That was one of the reasons Lance kept his hidden. Aside from the fact that he was the only person in his family who had wings, the idea of being gawked at or judged based on his wings made Lance hesitant to show them to anyone. Even at the garrison he kept them under wraps, folded tight against his body so no one would question him.

It was also one of the reasons he wanted to be a pilot so badly.

Back home Lance could fly whenever he wanted so long as no one saw him, but even when he stretched his brown wings to their fullest and glided through the sky, something in him desired to go _higher._ To touch the stars and explore where no one had been before and interact with aliens who wouldn’t see him as a freak or an anomaly was a dream Lance held onto since his first flight. Becoming a pilot was the best way to attain that dream.

Piloting a blue sentient robot lion and becoming a part of a galactic war wasn’t part of the plan. But Lance could roll with it. He could keep his wings held against his body when he wore his paladin suit the same way he did when he was at the garrison, and Blue was a reassuring presence to have whenever he started to doubt his abilities as a paladin. He and Keith even had something happening between them. It wasn’t exactly a rivalry, and it certainly wasn’t something Lance could put a label on just yet, but it was nice and he liked it.

Then Sendak invaded the castle, the balmera crystal exploded and shards buried themselves in his back, and everyone quickly learned just what Lance had been hiding from them during the mind meld training.

* * *

From the moment Lance came out of the healing pod with his secret revealed, everyone had been careful not to bother him with stupid questions. Keith even managed to stop making any remarks or jokes that could be misinterpreted, but that didn’t stop Lance from noticing the way they looked at him.

Like he was a freak.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Coran and Allura didn’t understand the difference between humans with wings and those without, so when Lance tried to educate them as to why the rest of the team was suddenly awkward around him, he was met with a brick wall of confusion.

“But you’re all human,” Allura said, her eyebrows knit together as she spoke. “It’s one small thing that makes you different, I don’t see how that determines how you should be treated.”

Lance was so close to smacking his head against the wall. He loved Allura, everyone did, but sometimes she could be so dense about human affairs it hurt him.

Puffing his wings up in annoyance, Lance said, “I know that, you know that, but most people don’t know how to deal with _this_.” Gesturing to the mass of brown feathers behind him, Lance crossed his arms over his chest and tried to think of a better way to explain it.

Nothing had been wrong per se since his secret came to light, but everyone had been acting weird. Allura and Coran clearly had questions, Pidge kept giving Lance looks that only a scientist would, Hunk just looked hurt that Lance hadn’t trusted him with this information, and Keith...Keith hadn’t really said or done anything different. Lance was still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Keith to retract his kindness and return to being a jerk.

“I think what Number Three is trying to say,” Coran said as he twirled his moustache, “Is that because this isn’t common and that he kept it a secret, the rest of the paladins are trying to figure out how to proceed without offending or hurting him.”

Opening his mouth to object, Lance hesitated and thought about what Coran said. He was probably right. If the team wanted to ignore him or start acting like discriminatory assholes they would’ve done it by now.

“Oh! Why didn’t you just say that Lance?” Allura asked, casting a warm smile his way.

Still thinking about what Coran said, Lance mumbled, “I didn’t think of it that way.”

* * *

“Just ask already,” Lance groaned, fixing Pidge with a look of annoyance.

He didn’t even know why he’d come down to the green lions hangar to wit and watch Pidge work. He could’ve gone to help Hunk and Coran work out some of the kinks in the castle’s drone system, but that seemed like too much work. At least Pidge didn’t expect him to help her with whatever coding she was working on.

“Okay!” Pidge said, spinning away from her computer to fix Lance with a wide grin. “What’s the length of your wingspan? How fast can you fly? Wait, _can_ you fly? Should we find a way to modify your armor so it fits better?”

Blinking at the sudden onslaught of questions, Lance let out a laugh before answering. Taking the time to answer all of Pidge’s weird questions, Lance slowly began to understand why the green lion chose her for more than the fact that she was smart. Pidge was brilliant, curious, and considerate enough to know when to backtrack after asking something too personal.

But it was nice, and clearly Pidge wasn’t trying to treat him differently. She was trying to learn who he was. That was something nobody had ever done for lance before, and he had to admit he liked sharing about himself. Well, he always liked talking about himself, but having a captivated audience who was practically taking notes was even more fun.

So Lance was a bit thrown when Pidge quietly asked, “Did it hurt? The explosion?”

“Yeah,” Lance nodded, surprised at how shy Pidge looked when she asked. “Healing pod took care of most of it, but I’ve gotta take care of the feathers that were damaged.”

Making a sound of understanding, Pidge flashed Lance a quick smile before stating, “I get why you didn’t tell anyone. We all have secrets.”

Lance wanted to argue that Pidge was wrong, that he was the only one with secrets, but something in her eyes stopped him. For someone so young Pidge had an ironclad will and sharp perception, making it more than difficult to change her mind. At the same time, that gave Lance some reassurance that Pidge didn’t harbor any negativity towards him. She’d made up her mind that he was still who he was, even with wings, and that was more than enough for Lance to be himself around her.

Not to mention, Pidge was more than willing to test out his flight capabilities to their fullest extent.

* * *

If there was one thing Lance knew about Shiro, it was that he was _heavy_. Lance wasn’t sure if it as the fact that Shiro was an over six feet tall muscled beefcake, or if the prosthetic arm contributed to that weight, but he was ridiculously hard to carry.

More accurately, Shiro was hard to carry when Lance was flying.

In his defense, Lance hadn’t exactly through his plan through before he jumped off the cliff after Shiro, but anything was better than standing around waiting for the locals to shove him to his death. It had been one of those cases where Coran’s information on the planet’s inhabitants had expired, and instead of being peaceful and welcoming to outsiders, the aliens of this planet were ridiculously hostile. The last thing Lance expected when he and Shiro were sent to talk with the tribe leader was to be chased by spear bearing locals.

So when Shiro had been hit in the chestplate with one of the sharp weapons and sent tumbling over the edge of the cliff, Lance blamed his instincts for making him jump after his leader.

If it hadn’t been for Hunk and Pidge experimenting and changing his paladin suit in order for him to get his wings out in case of emergencies, voltron would be down a black and blue paladin, or just have two very black and blue paladins. Either way wasn’t favorable, but once he caught Shiro and began to fly over the beach towards where they left the Black lion hidden in the jungle, Lance started to feel the strain of carrying another person.

“Lance!” Shiro yelled, his grip on Lance’s arms tightening, “What are you doing?!”

“Flying!” Lance laughed, dipping down so they were closer to the water in case he needed to drop Shiro. “Just hold on!”

“Oh trust me,” Shiro called over the wind, “I’m holding on!”

Smirking at Shiro’s rare show of irritation, Lance continued for as long as he could before his arms and shoulders burned in agony and landed a little ways away from the Black lion. It wasn’t a pretty landing considering he dropped Shiro on the crystal sanded beach and tumbled down next to him, but Lance still considered it to be better than when he was ten and face planted onto a concrete sidewalk.

A laugh bubbled out of Lance at the memory before he remembered he wasn’t alone, and quickly turned his attention to Shiro.

“You okay?” Lance asked, shaking his wings to rid them of some of the sand. “I didn’t give you much of a warning there.”

Sharing a small smile, Shiro shook his head and stated, “It’s fine, you just surprised me. Didn’t expect you to catch me.”

“Did you want me to let you fall?” Lance asked, rising to his feet and offering Shiro a hand. “Because I could’ve done that, but I don’t think Black would be too happy if I broke her paladin.”

Laughing at the remark, Shiro slung an arm over Lance’s shoulder, a friendly gesture he’d only seen him do with Keith.

Making their way back to the lion, Shiro asked, “Have you tried taking Keith out for a ride yet?”

Shaking his head at the question, Lance tried to suppress the heat rushing to his face. It hadn’t been long since Lance acknowledged his struggle with being attracted to Keith, but coming clean and admitting how he felt towards the red paladin had been harder than everyone finding out he was winged. If it hadn’t been for Keith taking the first step and angrily saying he wanted to punch Lance’s lips with his own, they probably wouldn’t have gotten together at all. But hearing Shiro mention it so casually made Lance feel all kinds of nervous even though there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

“He’d like it,” Shiro continued, noticing how Lance had fallen strangely silent. “Probably because he likes spending time with you, but you both like flying. Seems like a fun date activity.”

It did. And if Keith asked why Lance suddenly decided to fly around with him in the castle ballroom, he just smiled and said someone gave him the idea.

* * *

“Let me help.”

Looking up from preening his wings, Lance locked eyes with Keith and smiled. Ever since they started dating it was different having Keith be genuinely nice to him, but that didn’t mean Lance didn’t like it. They still joked and had fun, and they certainly didn’t stop exchanging snide remarks and commenting on each other’s skills, but it was more out of fun than malice.

“What do you mean?” Lance asked, raising an eyebrow in hopes of getting Keith flustered.

Moving to sit next to Lance, Keith narrowed his eyes and looked pointedly at the cluster of pinion feathers Lance had been struggling to open. “I want to help with your preening. That’s what boyfriends do, right?”

Grinning at the offer, Lance grabbed Keith’s hand and said, “Absolutely. You can pamper me all you like.”

Smiling at the comment Keith listened dutifully as Lance instructed him on how and what to do. When Keith finally started in on the job, Lance felt the tension in his shoulders drop at how good it felt. Despite his reckless behavior in the field, Keith was incredibly gentle when he had his hands buried in Lance’s feathers. In minutes Lance had begun to relax, the tension in his shoulders gone as Keith worked carefully and efficiently before transitioning to just running his fingers through the feathers.

Lance never would’ve asked anyone to do this for him, it was something he prided himself on being able to do mostly by himself, and he was very good at making sure his wings looked their absolute best. But Keith volunteered to do this, and he knew how vain Lance could be about his wings. Just that made it clear to Lance how far out of his way Keith had gone to find something he could do specifically for Lance.

“Lance,” Keith said, his soft words drawing Lance back to the moment. “Is this okay?”

“It’d be better if you kissed me,” Lance said, unashamed of what he was asking for, “But I’d pay you to do this.”

There was a moment of silence before Keith suggested, “I could do that for you if you wanted. Help you with your wings.”

“Really?” Lance asked, turning to look at Keith who nodded. The offer was so simple but it was also so sweet. “I’d like that.”

Breaking out into one of his rare smiles, Keith took Lance’s hand and ran the calloused pad of his thumb over the back of it before saying, “I can kiss you too. I don’t have a problem with that.”

* * *

Hunk was staring. It was obvious whenever Hunk stared at anyone, and no matter how many times Lance pointed it out to him the engineer never did anything to change up how he gawked at someone. Still Lance thought he deserved a little blatant staring.

“What’s up?” Lance asked, leaning back against the kitchen counter after meeting Hunk’s eyes.

The initial shock and hurt Hunk had expressed after Lance’s wings became paladin knowledge had faded into something between to Pidge’s curiosity and Keith’s easy acceptance. That didn’t quell any of Hunk’s desire to learn though, and Lance easily recognized the look in his friend’s eyes.

Making himself busy kneading the bread dough he was making, Hunk asked, “Can I ask a dumb question about... _you know?_ ”

He said the last part conspiratorially while he eyed Lance’s back like he was waiting for the brown wings to emerge and start talking to him like living creatures.

“Sure,” Lance said, tossing a small handful of pink altean flour at Hunk’s shirt. “You don’t have to worry about asking anything stupid, Pidge’s already asked all the dumb questions imaginable.”

Lance wouldn’t be surprised if Pidge assembled a book on winged people with all the interrogations she’d put him through.

Dropping the dough onto the floury countertop, Hunk smirked as the powder puffed up and got onto the sleeve of Lance’s jacket. “Do you make nests? Like with blankets and stuff, or is that just a bird thing?”

Laughing at the question, Lance shook his head and grinned, “I take it back dude. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve been asked since coming to space.”

“Seriously?” Hunk groaned, throwing his head back, “Coran asked you how many toes you had last week, and nests are a weird thing to ask about? You need to get your priorities straight.”

“Kinda hard to do that,” Lance mumbled, earning a stifled giggle from Hunk. Crossing his arms comfortably over his chest, Lance said, “No, I’ve never made a nest. I can build some hella epic blanket forts, but no nests. I didn’t even think of that.”

“Did you think of this?” Hunk asked, pelting Lance with a handful of flour.

Gasping at the fact his best friend had betrayed him like that, Lance quickly returned the favor. If Allura asked why the kitchen looked like a pink color bomb had exploded in it, neither Hunk nor Lance would give a proper answer. They just pointed at each other accusingly.

* * *

Lance was exhausted. Regular battles against the galra were never fun, but this one had wiped Lance out, and all he wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep until the next week, preferably with his boyfriend giving him cuddles, but he wasn’t picky.

So when he was stopped by Shiro on the way to his room after changing out of his armor, Lance wasn’t exactly happy his nap was being delayed. His attitude changed drastically once he saw what he was being led to the common area for.

Standing in front of a giant blanket fort like he engineered a city, Hunk had a look of smug pride in his eyes. Next to him Pidge was arguing with Allura about how socks were so much better than slippers in terms of feet warmers, all while Coran queued up some weird operatic music.

“What’s this?” Lance asked, glancing at Shiro for some kind of answer.

Shrugging as if he had no idea this was going to happen, Shiro said with a sly smile, “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend.”

The singsong way Shiro said boyfriend made Lance immediately look for Keith. The red paladin was sat on one of the couches, a soft neutral look on his face, but Lance could see the underlying hope in Keith’s expression.

Moving to plant a kiss on Keith’s cheek, Lance asked, “You wanna tell me why we’re having a me day?”

“I thought you said I could pamper you anytime?” Keith retorted, smiling gently.

His lip was bruised from where he worried at it with his teeth, but that didn’t stop Lance from kissing Keith. Being accepted by an alien race was one thing, but Lance’s team had gone out of their way for him.

Quickly settling into a comfortable spot in the blanket nest as Hunk so adamantly called it, Lance found himself curled next to Keith and Hunk who both had no problem with Lance stetching his wings over their backs like blankets. As everyone else settled down to relax, Lance ran his fingers through some of Keith’s hair and smiled at the brown feather that stood out against the black locks.

The feather had been a gift Lance had given Keith just because he could, and it was nice knowing Keith had no problem showing it off and using it as a sign that Lance had claimed him.

But being surrounded by the people he loved who loved him and everything that made him different made Lance slip off into a peaceful sleep. He didn’t have to worry about being accepted anywhere but here.

**Author's Note:**

> I kid you not my internet crashed three times while writing and when I tried to post this, so it's kind of amazing I haven't lost my mind over this. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
